


Creatures of Story and Legend (and soap opera)

by imkerfuffled



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Asgard, F/M, sadder than the title makes it seem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-04
Updated: 2016-02-04
Packaged: 2018-05-18 02:48:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5895133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imkerfuffled/pseuds/imkerfuffled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>He was a timeless god choosing to live in a world of mortals; his story could not end any other way.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Creatures of Story and Legend (and soap opera)

**Author's Note:**

> This was going to be part of something longer and infinitely sadder, but I never got around to finishing it, so... here you go. It's pretty much just me messing around with headcanons about Asgardian culture, and how their near-immortality plays into everything.

From a purely logical perspective, Thor knew that his friends would die long before the first signs of age appeared on his own face. He understood that mortal bodies and minds, on a molecular level, deteriorated much faster than those of Asgardian decent. He accepted it, in the same manner that he and his people accepted the existence of Ragnoroc.

In other words, he appeared to completely ignore it.

Asgardian culture as a whole tended to disregard the notion of change as a purely transient thing: a side effect of existing in a universe bound to the fourth dimension. When Thor first introduced this concept to Darcy, as consolation for her most recently displaced iPod, she merely gave him a funny look and continued searching the couch cushions. Even Jane, though she understood the concept and the underlying psychology behind it, struggled to truly _comprehend_ what Thor meant when he said change had no meaning on Asgard. The two of them believed that, to beings for whom a generation lasted nearly all of current human history, outward change happened so quickly and so often as to become obsolete, when in reality it was so much more than that.

Only Selvig came closest to ‘getting it,’ as Darcy would say, for only he had spent time in Loki’s head, and though the god may have been born a Jotunheim he was still Asgardian at heart. Selvig _knew_ , as did every Asgardian to ever walk the Nine Realms, how near to the truth mortals came when they claimed Thor to be the stuff of legends, because the gods were, are, and will ever be, just that: myths, _stories._ And stories are set in stone, unchanging. Once a story is put into words it can never be altered except in retelling, and even then only the details vary. While some small things may change with time, the narrative must stay the same, repeating itself in an endless loop until the end of all things. Kings rise and fall and rise again. Wars wage eternal, never-ending; though treaties are made and alliances formed, a new foe always rises to fill the empty space. On the surface it appears as though everything changes, but the underlying story is the same.

Many, many years after Thor first described this to his friends, Darcy summed it all up in five words.

“So basically, you’re a sitcom,” she said.

Thor laughed at the comparison and admitted that the similarity was partially why he had been drawn to them in the first place, when Darcy had sat everyone down one Saturday and said, “Cancel your weekend plans. Thor’s never heard of _Friends_ , and as responsible human beings it’s our duty to fix that.”

“Even death,” Thor told her now, “Isn’t so permanent on Asgard.”

“Oh no, you’re not just a sitcom. You’re a soap opera!” Darcy cried.

Again Thor chuckled, because there _was_ something undeniably grandiose about soap operas that appealed to him, but almost as quickly as he smiled he grew sober again. “Even when the dead do stay dead there are still ways to see them again,” he said, “For Asgardians, the afterlife is a place you can visit. Valhalla, Hel, it’s all accessible if you have the knowledge and the will, so even though we mourn our dead, we still know there is a chance to be reunited with them before we ourselves pass on. You mortals… You do not have that assurance.”

Darcy nodded with uncharacteristic gravity. “A lot of us,” she said, staring down at her feet curled up against the bottom of Jane’s couch, “A lot of us have trouble even believing in the afterlife, and those who do all disagree on what it’ll be. We’re so scared of death here, some people’d do anything to put it off.”

“I have noticed that in your species,” Thor nodded, “In the past it all seemed so pointless to me. Why concern yourselves with the worries of the future when today you are alive? But…” He gave a heavy sigh and raised his head to the ceiling, letting his shoulders drop against the back of the couch. “Now I begin to understand it,” he admitted, “Your lives are so fleeting to begin with… I can’t imagine trying to fit an entire lifetime’s worth of experiences into eighty short years.”

Darcy raised her head at his confession to see the flurry of emotions swirling just behind his closed eyelids: all the pain and loss that he knew he would have to face. He was a timeless god choosing to live in a world of mortals; his story could not end any other way. It hit Darcy suddenly just how much he stood to lose, and just how little time, from his perspective, they would all be together. For just a moment she felt small in a way that not even Jane’s talk of the vastness of space could make her feel.

“What are you going to do,” she whispered, subconsciously pulling her knees up to her chest, “After Jane…?”

For the longest time Thor stayed silent.

Then, “I… do not know.”


End file.
